


Mad (About You)

by DeltaRaeRunAway



Category: Dancing with the Stars (US) RPF, Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Anger/Guilt/Repeat, Baring of souls, Heat of a competition, Insecurity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 11:13:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1508417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeltaRaeRunAway/pseuds/DeltaRaeRunAway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hey, let's do what you said, and start fresh at week one!" "That's funny," Maks laughed drily, "because of how I am the weak one."</p><p>***</p><p>Mistakes were made—he let his frustration get the best of him—but sweet Meryl, soft Meryl, damn compliant Meryl understood perfectly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mad (About You)

“Trouble in paradise?” Charlie chuckled upon seeing her weary face as he swung by the gym to pick her up from ballroom practice.  


‘Gosh,’ Meryl thought, ‘he doesn’t even know the half of it.’

 

* * *

  

 _Of_ course _she’d been surprised by the four nines. And why shouldn’t she have been? It’s not her fault that she expected so much; it just created pressure that he had to supply it all for her. Who was the rookie again in this relationship? The guy who’d never won a mirror ball trophy in thirteen seasons of a trivial TV show or the Olympic gold medalist?_

_What was it that she and Charlie had said in a package promoting the games in Sochi? “If we don’t get the gold, yeah, we’ll be disappointed.” There was no reason to suspect otherwise. She was a champion, victorious always at heart. For all he knew,_ he _was the one tying her down and keeping those scores from being the perfect tens they deserved to be._

_She wasn’t being pompous, as blogs and gossip feeds would later suggest, this was just her persona, and what led her to be the best in the world at ice dancing. She was almost trained to think this way, to calculate every move on her part and his and everyone else’s, and to map the results._

_Is it a crime to be disappointed? No, of course not. They’d gotten thunderous applause from the audience and comments flattering enough to make her blush, and yet not one score cracked above a nine. And then…then there was Charlie, getting a ten, his first ever. She loved him, but…he dropped his prop. That’s a fall, a failure, in her eyes; in anybody's._

_So she was just trying to share her feelings, overcompensating, she guessed, for proving herself to be emotionally stable and it had backfired._

_Maks seemed taken aback that she had expected scores of tens, when he was content enough with their solid 36 all around. Did he not want it enough? Did he not have the emotional investment that she seemed to?_

_Shy as she purported to be, being a golden girl really changes things, and surprised as he was at her massive confidence, he can’t say that it didn’t add up. In competitions leading up to Sochi where she and Charlie were on a magnificent winning streak, just consecutively sweeping up first-place podium finishes like nobody’s business, they divulged a strategy of theirs._

_“We try to employ underdog mentality, but we’ve also embraced our title as veterans, and being so seasoned has really allowed us to take our performance to the next level.”_

_Humbly, of course, was this relayed, but watching the program that these words were superimposed upon stung. ‘She knows she’s good, and she’s let down if other people don’t acknowledge it. She feels like she has been cheated, and that this isn’t just, and so she’s fine telling this to national television…which is fine, it’s her fire, but it will all unfortunately come back to bite me,’ Maks processed._

_And she’d been doing the exact same thing on the show, with him, hadn’t she? Playing the part, the soft and sweet princess who let her dancing speak for itself. The problem with this façade arose during Disney week (irony at its finest) when her sparked bubbled up over her subdued and began to question her status; our status._

_She bit her lip as he tried to come up with the words to reassure her, but how could he do so when he didn’t sympathize? It was a dramatic power struggle too; him at a loss upon her disappointment, her feeling too proud in turn, and then his guilt at suppressing her feelings._

_He mumbled something about starting with a fresh slate this week._

_She made the error of reminding him of this post-mumble. "Hey, let's do what you said, and start fresh at week one!" "That's funny," Maks laughed drily, "because of how I am the weak one."_

* * *

 

_Her acquiescence flowed out of her so well and yet he, always cynical, had trouble believing the ease with which it did._

 

_“OK.” It was always so curt, so simple. “OK.” I hear you, I understand you, and I’ll try harder to improve, give me another chance._

_She didn’t finish her sentences: submissive. He shrugged his shoulders: also submissive._

_‘Why can’t she pick up on this? Why can’t I get through to her?’_

_He rattled on about her head, mentally berating himself. Maks, she knows the mind games, this is your own playing a trick on you! But still he offered words of wisdom. “It’s all in here,” tapping her noggin to reinforce. “Yeah. Yeah.” *Head nod*. Hands on hips. “Got it.”_

_Why was she so damn_ compliant _? So freaking easy to work with, so open to criticism both constructive and blunt. It made him feel like even more of a failure._

_I’ve got the best partner in the world and I can’t even provide a good routine for the people to see._

_Mistakes were made—he let his frustration get the best of him—but sweet Meryl, soft Meryl,_ damn _compliant Meryl understood perfectly. Why couldn’t she fight back, for once? Be aggressive, tell him that he’s wrong?_

_And then she had to go and candidly search for the best in him, like she did everybody. But he could tell that she’d noticed the fallout out of their element. She wondered if the reality of reality television had gotten to him and producers prodded him towards these series of outbursts. She wondered if she were too plain, too boring, too goody-two-shoes for his bad-boy image and if the viewers/voters needed something more, some tension or angst. She wondered for a bitter moment if NeNe had caused this breach, necessitating drama worthy of Real Housewives everywhere. Then, of course, she felt bad, and took the comment back._

_“Why are you so fucking timid?”_

_He was livid. But not with her, and that made him all the more angry. It was a vicious cycle; mad at himself, mad at Meryl for not being the instigator, mad at himself for wishing poor fate of Meryl, mad at Meryl for not understanding, mad at himself for daring to think she should understand._

_He’d never cursed in her presence before (OK, completely not true, but he’d never cursed with any words directed at her.) She didn’t quite know what to make of it, or she shouldn’t have. Surely_ Charlie _never cursed at her, nor her parents and coaches, strict as they were._

_But she took it all in fucking stride like the pro that she was. She miss-stepped onto his foot and a stiletto heel pierced his skin and he positively burst._

_“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” It was all she could say, and Maks was even more enraged._

_It hurt, but it wasn’t her fault, but_ why was she still fucking apologizing _, but if she stopped he’d hate her, but if he heard her pitiful voice one more time he’d hate himself for making her afraid—was she afraid of him? When had it come down to this?_

_What mutual partnership, he scoffed; I am apparently the master and she is my marionette._

_Later he’d change this analogy: I am the Cinderella in rags and she is my fairy godmother._

_He stormed over the camera, ever-present, filming his rage. He didn’t want his flying off the handle to be captured. He didn’t want to appear weak, and then he felt enraged again, because he should be worried about people’s perceptions of Meryl’s safety. Who gives a damn about me, about my reputation? Let the cameras roll, so long as they know that it’s my job to keep her safe and I’m doing it. So I’m a monster._

_(But this monster really did care about his reputation, and so his hand covered the lens and guilt covered his conscience.)_

_She didn’t want to offend him with her anthropological synopsis of his traits, but this was hurting their partnership and potentially their success on the show. Then Maks had had enough, and his one worry came to light amidst a sea of expletives._

_“Tell me what’s wrong,” She’d all but begged._

_Fine. If she wanted the truth, here it was. “We do all we can last week; we get fucking nines.”_

_All too quickly came her reply: “Who cares?” Her voice rising as she spoke, reflecting how petty she sensed this all to be. He wanted to take her by the shoulders, to shout at her, “you do! Don’t you remember? The first thing you said is that you are disappointed. You care, and so_ I _care, too!” But he couldn’t, and he settled for expressing his intense feelings for her in another way._

_“Then I look at your face, and I see ‘could we have done more?’ and I’m like ‘I’m trying to do more!’” Cue the perpetual tug-and-pull of fault versus cause._

_And then—where did this even come from—he channeled his frustration at being the clearly lesser half by throwing in such an irrelevant thing; he didn’t know how she accepted it as an excuse. “Phoning it in?” He feigned being incredulous._

_It would always come back to this, wouldn’t it? Meryl soothed him, finally in her zone. She was such a say-what-you-feel type of girl, and through years of harsh judges and increasingly difficult routines she’d gotten good at coping with Charlie and he with her, so this consolation was right up her alley, but that only made Maks feel worse._

_“Well, but see that’s—OK, hold my hand.” (Did his heart melt a little here? Sure, whose wouldn’t? No pretty girl had ever asked to hold his hand before.) As she spoke, reassuring him of fears he didn’t know he had, she clasped his hand in hers, swinging it around with ease like it was a practiced movement. Was it? Was this a regular insecurity buster of hers and Charlie’s?_

_“I must be the weakest freaking person on this cast.” She didn’t respond, but the pity in her eyes was enough of a catalyst to trigger his next words, an overwhelming sense of possession and protectiveness overtaking him then. “Don’t even try to pep talk me, I’m pep talking you.”_

_Somebody else might have become offended by his demand. Others would without question take his word to be right. She met him in the middle, and that felt good, despite all of his bad feelings swirling around._

_She negotiated. “We can pep talk each other.” It was a promise, as she settled comfortably into a lean on his torso, their hands still entwined._

_Somewhere between rehearsal and the real deal, everything dissolved, leaving no trace. Or so he thought, at least, relieved at being over and done with his unsightly vulnerable displays._

_At least he and Meryl had come to an understanding—they could be angry and feel things about the other person without impending guilt. They were allowed by all means to have emotions, and the only crime thereafter would be apologizing for or making a vicious cycle of these emotions mixed with doubt after the fact. At least the endless torture of negations on a loop had been put to a stop._

_And when they’d gotten all of their tens, their first perfect score, that coveted forty, the look on her face had been thrilled, and that’s all he could picture for a brief moment, until…_

_‘Shit,’ he thought inwardly. ‘There’s kind of nowhere to go but down.’_

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is just something that came into my head while I was watching last night's episode (week 6) of DWTS. That was...an intense package from M&M, to say the least.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this! Feel free to leave any type of comment :)
> 
> Also, a disclaimer: I don't own anything, this does not reflect reality, and normally I try not to curse in stories; after seeing Maks so openly doing so I felt it natural to write it into his character.


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